Convinced there were better choices out there, we asked readers what they would select as a farewell song for the BBC, which (as far as we know) doesn’t have anything cued up in case of imminent doomsday.

Continuing our string of spooky October posts, this month we celebrate the birthday of filmmaker Ed Wood who was born on October 10, 1924. Wood passed away prematurely at the age of 54 due to a heart attack. During his short life, he made a series of science fiction and monster films that weren’t so much scary as they were scary-bad.

Wood also challenged social taboos like transgenderism way back in 1953 with his first film Glen or Glenda which was based on the life Christine Jorgensen and Wood’s own predilections for transvestism — if Wood’s monster movies failed to spook his sympathetic treatment of LGBT issues at the dawn of the Eisenhower Era it would have been a true shocker.

Wood’s camp aesthetics have garnered him a cult following, but here at Insomnia we love Wood because he was a true Hollywood dreamer who imagined himself to be an immortal filmmaker before actually becoming one.… Read the rest

Oh, I do so love this. It’s precisely the right thing to do, sorely needed and sorely overdue. In this specific case, back in 2012 the BBC was criticized for news shows inviting on people with fringe views, especially when the science being discussed was solidly understood.

Be sure to pack toys and games for the kiddies! Oh, man. Surely they knew that this was preposterous by the time this was produced.

Check out the British film Threads far more realistic (and emotionally scarring) look at life after a nuclear war. It came on PBS one night when I was ten years old and war with the USSR seemed more of a possibility with every passing day. I recently found the film and watched it again, expecting it to be nowhere near as disturbing as I remembered it. Nope. Still freaked me the hell out. Made The Day After look like a “Very Special Episode” of The Brady Bunch. I’ve embedded that film after the jump.

A growing number of influential publications have offered their own takes on the 1980s Satanic Panic since the March 21st publication of our history of our own (“Mazes, Monsters, Charlatans, Satan and Suicide: A Short History of the Satanic Panic“). It’s been amazing to see the Panic become the topic du jour, especially at large, popular websites like IO9 and the BBC. All I can say is that there must be something in the air besides pollen and the sweet, minty fresh smell of chemtrails for so many sites to tackle the same, relatively obscure topic in such a short amount of time! Whatever signal is in the air, clearly we’re all receiving it loud and clear. Must be one of those “Hundredth Monkey” things. Good that more people are hearing about the panic, no matter where they hear it from, but cheers to you, Disinfonauts, for getting the story here first.… Read the rest

It’s been years since I met anyone that still believes in the official government story of the lone gunman. For obvious reasons of course, since you would have to be completely obtuse to hold onto such simplistic perceptions of the world – not to mention to having no understanding of physics at all.

For those that continue to encounter such people, the only advice I have is to sit down with your loved ones, or those that you would like to educate, and have them read or watch a little Bill Hicks.

As we all know, throughout history our governments and politicians have lied. They have conspired to obtain power, to overthrow governments, to destroy their political rivals, and to make money.… Read the rest

As Andrew Gardner read out news of the conflict in Rhodesia, a hissing, shuffling sound drowned out his voice. Suddenly, a booming voice addressed the startled viewers, as the screen still showed the oblivious newsreader reading through the day’s headlines.

This is the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you.

It was now ten past five in the evening. With the news report still continuing on the screen, the deep, oscillating voice continued with his message.

For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies.

None of the evening staff at Southern Television were aware of the intrusion to their signal. International Broadcasting Authority engineers in Croydon, Surrey did not hear the rogue signal, nor was it detected at the main transmitter site in Southampton.

In the wake of the NSA/Snowden revelations, and the general sense of paranoia that has taken grip of the news cycle and the internet, a few pundits have assumed the roles of cultural watchdogs, taking the pulse of public taste to measure the effect of the spooky news on the hearts and minds of the people.

A number of journalists and commentators have noted that one possible side effect of the recently-revealed government snooping on personal communications has been a spike in the sales of the George Orwell classic 1984 on the mega-book-selling-site, Amazon. But, how big is the sales spike and how much of it can be attributed to Snowden’s bravery in the face of the NSA’s dubious doings? This article at Slate offers a measured interpretation:

Sales of one particular edition of George Orwell’s dystopian classic are up some 5,000 percent on Amazon.com in the past 24 hours, according to the site’s list of “movers and shakers.” The figure was as high as 7,000 earlier today.… Read the rest

The walking, talking antithesis of mainstream news programming, or the perfect addition to it? Following a dramatic appearance on CNN earlier this year, this past weekend Alex Jones was featured on the BBC One's Sunday Politics show for the ostensible purpose of discussing the Bilderberg Conference. Perhaps not completely surprisingly, things took a turn towards the chaotic, with the show fading out with Jones shouting at viewers to "wake up" as host Andrew Neil makes "looney tunes" gestures at the camera: